Jun. 17, 2013

Mark Chalos / The Tennessean / File

Written by

Walter F. Roche Jr.

The Tennessean

Subpoenas are expected to be issued this week in an attempt to identify hundreds of possible additional victims in Tennessee and across the country of illnesses caused by tainted drugs produced by a now-defunct Massachusetts compounding company.

The subpoenas will be issued to hospitals, physicians and other health-care providers who purchased drugs from the New England Compounding Center, the firm blamed for a nationwide outbreak of fungal meningitis that has killed 58 people and sickened nearly 750 others.

The list was compiled by federal officials after the outbreak became public. The subpoenas seek the names and addresses of patients who were treated with any NECC drugs from Jan. 1, 2011, until November 2012, when the company was shut down and recalled all of its products.

According to court records, the initial round of subpoenas will not ask for medical records, but will seek the specific NECC drug the patient received and the patient’s name and address.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs in a pending federal court suit in Boston filed a motion late last week to issue the subpoenas, stating that it was critical to identify all potential claimants in a pending suit against NECC, which has filed for bankruptcy.

“The primary purpose is to help notify the families who may not even realize that they are victims,” said Mark Chalos, a Nashville attorney representing some of the victims.

Chalos said the investigation of the outbreak has produced evidence that other drugs from NECC may have been tainted, not just the spinal steroid, methylprednisolone acetate, blamed for the fungal meningitis outbreak.

He said drugs used for certain eye treatments and in cardiac care have been implicated.

Under the procedure spelled out in court documents, the names and addresses of potential victims will be collected by a private vendor acting under court supervision and the records will be held “in strictest confidence.”

“The court will set up a procedure to protect privacy,” Chalos said, adding that the records will “be kept under lock and key.”

All but a handful of the cases against NECC and its owners have been merged in a single case pending before a federal judge in Boston. Four cases that were originally filed in circuit court in Nashville also are expected to be filed in federal court before U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV.

The four suits were dropped recently just before critical depositions were set to begin.

The information being sought under the subpoenas would normally be considered confidential under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, but the records can be obtained with court approval.

Among the health providers getting subpoenas will be the Saint Thomas Outpatient Neurosurgical Center, the clinic where local victims were treated with the spinal steroid.